According an article written by the Minister for Equalities today, the Spousal Veto seems set to remain in legislation in England and Wales:

From 10 December there is also good news for married transgender people. You will now be able to change your legal gender without ending your marriage, provided you and your husband or wife agree to remain married.

It is entirely possible that this not intended to be such an announcement but is simply sloppy and insensitive drafting by the Civil Service who should, if they are paying attention, be well aware of the coverage the spousal veto has been getting. The announcement today was partly a cover for the less positive news arising from the publication of the response to the consultation into civil partnerships. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport have decided that they are not going to legislate for mixed-sex civil partnerships – something that is bound to end up facing continued legal challenge.

Sadly, the technical paperwork underlying the announcements also fails to shed any light on the issue but the inclusion of the 10th December date means we at least know that the government must have decided for sure by that date, when the first conversions happen.

A number of people, myself included, have already contacted the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to ask for clarification.

For those that didn’t see updates on twitter the day after the elections, below are the election results for all openly trans politicians who stood in May’s Local and European Elections.

Spoiler: Nobody won.

This ends a 14 year run of openly trans politicians being elected in the UK. I doubt this will make any direct difference to campaigning for trans rights, which is done via internal party structures and external campaigning quite separate from district and European councils, but it’s certainly not good. Whilst nobody listed had been the holy grail of a safe seat, there was certainly no lack of winnable seats – I only lost my own election by 10 votes, and Anwen Muston failed to gain a seat by just 36. Press narrative before the election also gave Anna Booth and Charlie Kiss a reasonable chance of winning and Sarah Brown was restanding in her own seat.

In the tables below, entries for openly trans folk are in bolded and italics indicate the winner(s). Entries are listed in order of how close the result was.

Cambridge, East Chesterton
Labour and Co-operative 1076
Zoe O’Connell, Liberal Democrats 1066
UKIP 328
Green 299
Conservative 260
Wolverhampton, Penn
Conservative 1490
Anwen Muston, Labour 1454
UKIP 896
Liberal Democrats 202
Trafford, Davyhulme East
Conservative 1256
Anna May Booth, Labour 973
UKIP 509
Green 134
Liberal Democrats 63
Socialist Labour 41
Islington, Highbury East (All-up)
Labour​ 1514 1430
Green 1214
Labour 1206
Liberal Democrats 1204 1185 1138
Charlie Kiss, Green​ 867
Green 721
Conservative 411 375
UKIP 247
Cambridge, Petersfield (2-up due to by-election)
Labour 1280 1223
Sarah Brown, Liberal Democrat 720
Green 688
Liberal Democrats 317
Conservative 262 228
Bolton, Tonge with the Haulgh
Labour 1399
UKIP 1053
Zoe Kirk-Robinson, Conservative 486
BNP 109
Green 91
Liberal Democrats 66
Left Unity 14
European Parliament, West Midlands
UKIP (3 elected) 428,010
Labour (2 elected) 363,033
Conservative (2 elected) 330,470
Liberal Democrat 75,648
Green 71,464
An Independence from Europe 27,171
We Demand a Referendum (Nikki Sinclaire) 23,426
BNP 20,643
English Democrats 12,832
NO2EU 4,653
Harmony Party 1,857

Updated January 2015: One person who was out at the time of their election was been removed from the list at their request.